HTMLTextAreaElement: minLength property

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This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. Its been available across browsers since April 2018.

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The minLength property of the HTMLTextAreaElement interface indicates the minimum number of characters (in UTF-16 code units) required for the value of the <textarea> element to be valid. It reflects the element's minlength attribute. -1 means there is no minimum length requirement.

Note: If the textarea has a value, and that value has fewer characters than the minlength attribute requires, the element is considered invalid and the ValidityState object's tooShort property will be true.

Value

A number representing the element's minlength if present or -1.

Example

Given the following HTML:

html

<p>
  <label for="comment">Comment</label>
  <textarea id="comment" minlength="10" maxlength="200"></textarea>
</p>

You can use the minLength property to retrieve or set the <textarea>'s minlength attribute value:

const textareaElement = document.querySelector("#comment");
console.log(`Element's minLength: ${textareaElement.minLength}`); // "Element's minlength: 10"
textareaElement.minLength = 5; // updates the element's minlength attribute value

Specifications

Specification
HTML # dom-textarea-minlength

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on Jun 24, 2025 by MDN contributors.

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